Sunday, November 23, 2008

Let me take a second to clarify something: I can't imagine students were trying to hit the players intentionally with snowballs yesterday. It seems like it was probably some kids with an ample supply of ammunition at their feet horsing around. As such, I hate the way this is being spun by the national press as a case of students viciously turning on their own classmates. I've been to games where snowballs were thrown, and I was at a MLB game that was forfeited because people were throwing souvenir baseballs onto the field. In neither case did I think fans were trying to hit their own team.

Now, trying to hit TV timeout guys is plausible. Or state troopers. But I can't buy that students were intentionally taking shots at their own classmates. My brother-in-law, a current senior, sends this report.

It was absolutely embarrassing. I've never been more embarrassed to represent Notre Dame as I was yesterday. Really, most of the throwers (a minority of the students overall) were aiming at the TV guy, but any way you draw it up, it was really lame. It was also pissing off 90 percent of the students who weren't throwing. Numerous times, students yelled at other students to knock it off, and a lot of people, including us, were really pissed off. Embarrassing.

Unfortunately, several national stories this morning (including the front page of Yahoo) are making it look like it was a mass student reaction to the loss, instead of just limited jackassery by a few lunkheads. Most of the eyewitness reports say the snowballs were hurled in the first quarter and soon ceased, which would seem to indicate it wasn't a backlash to the loss. Embarrassing as this is, I think it's wrong for reporters to push it as something more nefarious than simply some boneheaded students goofing around. Notre Dame is not Philadelphia.